“Have you practiced today?” he asked.
“Yes, Father.”
He considered her over the rim of his cup. She was twelve, nearly thirteen. A daughter raised entirely in the shadow of her mother’s death and his own emotional reticence. He realized with a start that this was the first time he had ever taken teaalone with her, just the two of them, without some intermediary or excuse. He found he did not know how to speak to her.
Sophia filled the silence with a question of her own. “Do you like Lady Lavinia?”
Tristan nearly choked on his tea. “She is... efficient,” he managed, then, seeing the disappointment flicker across Sophia’s face, he added, “and she seems to have a gift for instruction.”
Sophia’s lips twisted in what might have been a smile, or might have been indigestion.
“She told me that it is important to ask questions,” Sophia said, her voice gaining a fraction of confidence. “Even if one fears the answer.”
Tristan put his cup down slowly. “What do you wish to ask?”
Sophia’s fingers twisted the edge of her handkerchief. “Will you... will you keep Lady Lavinia? Or will she be like the others?”
He was silent for a moment, torn between the impulse to reassure and the habit of blunt honesty. “That depends on her performance,” he said, but even to his own ears the words sounded hollow.
Sophia stared at her lap, her cheeks coloring.
“She is kind,” Sophia said, surprising him. “She does not make me feel stupid when I fail.”
Tristan felt a strange, unwelcome sensation in his chest. “That is as it should be,” he said, though he knew it had not always been so.
They sipped in silence, the awkwardness between them lessening only fractionally.
“Lady Lavinia says I should look people in the eye when I speak,” Sophia said suddenly, and forced herself to meet his gaze. “She says it shows respect. And confidence.”
He regarded her, this child who was no longer quite a child, and saw in her face both his own stern features and the ghost of her mother’s gentle beauty. He wondered what Mary would have thought of Lavinia, and found himself almost wishing she were here to offer her opinion.
“Lady Lavinia has many opinions,” he observed.
“Yes,” Sophia agreed, with a small, secretive smile. “She says that opinions are like tea. If left to steep too long, they become unpleasant.”
He could not help it. He laughed. The sound startled both of them.
Sophia’s face bloomed with the shy pride of someone who had just succeeded at a difficult task.
The moment was so intimate, so out of character for their usual interactions, that Tristan found himself at a loss. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with how easily Lavinia’s presence had breached the walls he had so carefully constructed.
It was in his daughter’s eyes, bright with admiration for a woman who had been in their lives for less than a fortnight and yet had already done more for Sophia than he had in twelve years.
The realization left him both grateful and unsettled. He was used to command, to control. But Lavinia Pembroke did not obey his rules. She bent them, broke them, made them seem obsolete. She was claiming territory that did not belong to her.
A dangerous place for anyone to be.
CHAPTER 11
"What is the point of reading?" Lavinia snapped the book shut so hard the volume nearly bit her thumb. Sighing, she stared at the gold-embossed title on the spine, a treatise on agricultural improvements, and contemplated throwing it into the empty library hearth. Instead, she drummed her fingers on the leather cover.
She was meant to be preparing for Lady Sophia's next lesson, but the words swam together, refusing to cohere into anything useful. The only thoughts permitted in her skull today were of the Duke and his infuriating need to meddle in the affairs of everyone around him. Lavinia pressed her fingers to her forehead and let out a sigh that carried with it the resignation of a much older woman.
A soft knock at the door startled her into uprightness. She clutched the book to her chest as if it might serve as a shield.
"Come in, Mrs. Down," Lavinia called, voice sharp enough to draw blood.
The housekeeper entered. Mrs. Down was only a decade older than Lavinia, but had cultivated the air of an ageless family retainer—a trick achieved mainly through persistent stoicism and the ability to survive on boiled turnip soup.
